


This Last Thing I Could Do For You

by CatChan



Series: Rest Forever Here In Our Hearts [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-04 03:20:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12762045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatChan/pseuds/CatChan
Summary: -The opening of the Will is scheduled at 19:00 this Monday in the Batcave.-Jason stared at the message. The Will. Whose will? In the Batcave, a will was being read.It had been sent by Barbie's Oracle number, so the probability of a prank was in negative percentages.One of the Bats had died, and Jason hadn't been told. He’s always the last one to hear about these things.Oh, god, what if it was Alfred?Hands just barely not trembling, Jason typed his reply.-Who died-No question mark, somehow, it seemed more disrespectful than sending a message without proper punctuation.Meant to be read afterEven Now We Feel The Shape Of Your Absence





	This Last Thing I Could Do For You

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Even Now We Feel The Shape Of Your Absence](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12737913) by [CatChan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatChan/pseuds/CatChan). 



> You can all thank [chibi_nightowl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibi_nightowl/pseuds/chibi_nightowl) for prompting me to write this prequel to [Even Now We Feel The Shape Of Your Absence](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12737913) and then acting as my beta despite her very busy schedule.  
> [comicroute](https://archiveofourown.org/users/comicroute/pseuds/comicroute) is innocent of promptings, but she did also beta.
> 
> ♥ to you two!
> 
>  **Trigger Warning:** contains fairly graphic description of a cremation and the gritty details it entails.
> 
>  **SUPPLEMENTARY TRIGGER WARNING IN END NOTES** I'm not putting it up top in case you started with this one, and not the first one.

* * *

* * *

* * *

**Reminder that you're on the second work of the series, It's not the one I intended my readers to start with.**  
**The content of this series was made to be read in the stated order, for stylistic purposes.**

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

 

 

_-The opening of the Will is scheduled at 19:00 this Monday in the Batcave.-_

 

Jason stared at the message. The Will. Whose will? In the Batcave, a will was being read.

 

It had been sent by Barbie's Oracle number, so the probability of a prank was in negative percentages.

 

One of the Bats had died, and Jason hadn't been told. He’s always the last one to hear about these things.

 

Oh, god, what if it was Alfred?

 

Hands just barely not trembling, Jason typed his reply. _-Who died-_ No question mark, somehow, it seemed more disrespectful than sending a message without proper punctuation.

 

 _-Red Robin-_ Came back ten seconds later.

 

Jason stared at the two words. He'd expected relief if it wasn't Alfred, but learning it was the kid he still held a grudge against without a proper reason was actually worse.

 

* * *

 

Jason arrived at the Cave at 7 pm sharp on Monday. He was there for the Will, not to socialize.

 

He'd had the time to look up what had happened.

 

It had been surprisingly easy.

 

Red Robin Death and Red Robin Suicide were all over the internet. There was a shaky cell-phone video of the hero hurling to the ground and going splat that had gone viral enough that even the Bats couldn't seem to get rid of it, and then dozen of witness declarations on diverse discussion boards.

 

The report he'd hacked on the Batcomputer said that Red Robin's gear had been in perfect working order, he didn't seem to have suffered any head injury before the fall, and his blood tox screening came back perfectly clear.

 

So.

 

Suicide.

 

Somehow Jason felt bad.

 

He wondered if he'd had anything to do with Repla- Tim's decision.

 

Dickster had told him, "Tim was your greatest fan. I saw him talking to your Memorial Case in the cave, Jay."

 

He wondered. Would things be different if he'd actually apologized for beating the kid up on top of Titan’s Tower and shooting him that time?

 

Jason knew how much having a role-model betray you hurt, and he'd been the one who did that to Tim, hadn't he? Would he have gone suicidal if Bruce systematically went after him with the intention to cause maximum harm instead of just reactively hurting him?

 

Who was he kidding, Jason was already a bit opportunistically suicidal even with just the status-quo at hand.

 

He didn't have the time to dwell more, because the big screen flickered with a video as soon as Bruce saw him arrive. (He was the last one, good.)

 

"Hey," the costumed and masked Red Robin on the screen started. "Seeing the probability of me dying, on or off the field, I figured I should make a vigilante version of my will. That way I can get into the type of questions that definitely couldn't be stated or explained on the civilian one that I left with the lawyer."

 

The Tim on the screen (not the one resting under a sheet in a refrigerated dome in the medbay that Jason had only glimpsed so far) turned a bit more somber. "I gave this video to Oracle. I figured a video would be the easier to confirm as genuine and not forced. The instructions were to get everyone possible to open it, but do it within two days at most, even if some were missing. That way you have a forewarning of my preferences before you start sorting my civilian death."

 

"Good bye everyone. B, if you are watching this alone because you couldn't wait for the others, or got nosy and I'm still alive while you see this, I'm very disappointed in you, close this video immediately!" Red Robin made a stern frowny face, and despite the solemn atmosphere in the cave, a ripple of amusement ran through the assembled heroes.

 

Jason for his part stomped down on his matching laugh to shoot Bruce a suspicious look. Did he tense? Had he actually tried it?

 

"So, I guess first off are my cases... I pre-made an override command in all my digital systems that will transfer everything to my old Robin session in the Batcomputer. I tend to use informatics a lot, so there should be everything you need on it to finish whatever I am doing at the moment of my death. It might be time sensitive, so I hid the transfer key in the Batcave, you'll find it under the detachable R emblem of my first Robin design in the display cave. It's a microchip, you might need a couple of minutes to find it, then connect under my old session and launch the program that pops up, it'll do everything on it's own. DO NOT fiddle with the code or launch it from anything but my old session on the Batcomputer, it'll destroy all my data. That's a very safeguarded override."

 

"Even then, some things are password protected. I put the list of encrypted passwords and corresponding files under the passenger side floor-mat of the Batmobile. Red Hood's Batmobile." Probably the one he boosted the tires from what feels like a lifetime ago. Good concealment of information in case an enemy got the Will on Tim's part, that.

 

"The encryption key is written on a post it note in Nightwing's favorite book from when he was still wearing the disco suit." Jason shot a look at Dick, who had a pensive expression on, trying to remember, surely.

 

"Legacy comes next, I guess? Red Robin was Hood's so if he wants to take it back now that I'm dead he can, I'd rather you didn't give it to D-Robin or any youngster after me, though. It’s not been around long enough to absolutely need to get passed down, and frankly, if I die in it, it would be a pretty unlucky omen for the next one.”

 

And that doused the little bit of levity that seeing a sassy Red Robin had introduced. Jason couldn’t help but sneak a glance at the sheet covered exam table.

 

Talk about unlucky.

 

One thing was sure, Jason would not be donning Red Robin again, thank you.

 

“The map of all my personal safe houses should be in the download with my cases, feel free to help yourselves to them or my gear. I mean all of you, no one gets to claim everything for themselves without asking the others if they want it.”

 

“Now my other Will also says this, but I wish to be cremated. And if possible not have all the ashes at the same place. I know it is tempting to forego it and wish for another miraculous resurrection like for J. But considering the interest Ra’s has been paying me, I really, really prefer not to run any risk of him ever getting his hands on my corpse.”

 

Tim looked at the camera fixedly. “I know what you’re thinking, B. You’re thinking you could protect my grave. Don’t. You’re not immortal, Ra’s is. What about fifty years from now? Will you still be able to protect my grave then? I prefer not to run the risk, so please respect my wishes on this.”

 

Bruce got up abruptly and stormed off.

 

Jason shot a venomous glare at his back.

 

He couldn’t even handle that? Tim had definitely been low balling that one because Bruce’s ability to protect graves? BULLSHIT. He hadn’t even noticed him vacating his.

 

Tim spoke for a couple more minutes. Minor things about who could have what, and his wish not to get a memorial case in the Batcave, and what to give to the Titans. There were instructions about keeping an eye on his teammates, especially Superboy, right after his death. He  offset that by saying he made a will for the Titans too and that they would know what he wanted them to do after he died.

 

There weren’t person by person messages for the Bats, Tim apparently treated them as a single entity, or he’d made a series of personal messages independently from the general one.

 

Jason wasn’t paying much attention by the time the screen went black, because his mind had gotten stuck on Tim’s demand for a cremation. He understood that all too well. And more importantly, Bruce’s reaction to it.

 

Was he getting paranoid?

 

This suspicion, that Bruce storming off might be because he wanted to falsify the civilian will, stuck with him though.

 

Would Bruce be that much of an asshole?

 

What a question.

 

Yes, yes he would. When Bruce thought he knew best, he steamrolled everyone to force his version of ‘the best thing to do’, disregarding everyone’s logical reasons or emotions.  Jason actually wondered if he was even aware people other than him routinely had feelings.

 

He looked around himself at the other Bats in the cave. Bruce wasn’t hiding anywhere he could see, but everyone else lingered, making clusters, crying, or noticeably being in the process of not-crying.

 

Damian was standing stock still, staring at the screen vacantly, obviously still deep in shock or denial.

 

Everyone else was mixed bags. They had seen death so often that they skipped entire stages of grief all the time, though for that one, Jason did foresee everyone getting bogged down on guilt floor for ages. He knew he would.

 

Suicides had the tendency to do that to surviving families after all.

 

Resigned to the idea of having to be the bad guy, Jason stalked past Blondie crying in the arm of a very stiff Cassandra and stopped in front of Barbara.

 

She extracted her blotchy face from Dick’s abs and sniffed. “What do you want?” she asked coldly.

 

“Where is B?”

 

Dick snarled, jumping over the wheelchair to put himself between Barbara and Jason. “Now is not the time to be petty. Tim is dead! He... He’s dead, he’s not coming back, he’s dead!”

 

So he was the bad guy. He was okay with it but as the one who’d gotten royally fucked by a Lazarus Pit, he’d given himself the mission to ensure Red Robin was burned the way he asked to. Being the good guy or the bad guy was not important. Keeping Bruce from disrespecting his third Robin’s wishes was.

 

So he said the bad guy’s thing. “Yes, he’s dead. And he wanted to stay that way and not become a Lazarus puppet like me, so I really hope I am wrong in my suspicions, but I need to know where Bruce is to be sure of that.”

 

Barbara stared at him around Dick, wide eyed. “He wouldn’t.”

 

“Right. And he wouldn’t label my memorial with ‘a good soldier’ either, then?” Jason spat back.

 

“This isn’t about you!” Dick yelled.

 

“No, it isn’t!” Jason bellowed back, agry to be accused of making Red Robin’s death about him. “It’s about Tim wanting to be cremated and Bruce going missing after the unofficial Will stated part of the content of the official one that’s with a lawyer. A part Bruce doesn’t like. How well can a law office hold up to the Batman?”

 

“How dare you suggest… You hateful!” Dick was losing steam. And the whole cave was deathly silent except for the unhappy rustle of disturbed bats on the ceiling. Everyone was staring at them. “...Spiteful… You!”

 

“Prove me wrong, then.” Jason gestured to the computer. “Tell me where Bruce is.”

 

Barbara blew out a loud breath. “I so hope you are wrong.” She wheeled herself to the console, letting Dick try to protect empty air.

 

“So do I.” Jason stood tall, arms crossed next to Barbara as she chillingly narrated her finds. No missing cars or bikes. Jason pointed that Bruce had gone up the stairs in his Batman costume. She gritted her teeth and looked for him on the video surveillance.

 

Dick was staring at him like he was a monster. And frankly, he would give his right hand to be wrong, but someone had to doubt the Bat, and if no one else would, Jason would be that person. He infinitely prefered being wrong and looking like the a heartless monster at Tim’s will reading, than be right but not speaking up and seeing Bruce prove himself to be the inconsiderate asshole once more.

 

“No,” Barbara whispered. “No.”

 

Jason squeezed his eyes shut. Shit. The pinpoint that represented Bruce was heading straight for Gotham. Which wasn’t that bad per-se. Maybe he was planning to beat some poor schmucks up to make himself feel better, but as far as disproving his fears went, it wasn’t great. (The fact that he had gone out in full Batman from the Manor’s entrance and apparently decided to go by foot wasn’t saying great things about his state of mind either.)

 

He stood still and silent, watching Bruce move on the map. Waves of murmurs floated around as some of the Bats left for their patrol and others watched along with Dick, Barbara and Jason.

 

When Bruce made it to the block of Tim’s lawyer, Jason decided to fuck the benefit of the doubt and stop dawdling.

 

His plan was already forming as he turned away from the computer screen and jogged up the cave’s stairs.

 

First, he went to the garage.

 

Slashing every single tire might have been a little overdone, but Bruce was filthy rich, he’d get over it.

 

Second were the supplies.

 

He didn’t have a precise idea of exactly what would be needed, but he figured he could always buy what he needed as he went. The most important tools for the first phase was cooling stuff.

 

He pilfered a big comforter from a guest room and filled it with as many ice cube packs as he could find in the upstairs freezer, then he trudged back down the cave’s stairs with his loot.

 

Barbara, Alfred and Damian were the only ones still in the cave when Jason came back down. He figured Dick must have led the few stragglers on a mission to go talk some sense into the big dumb Bat.

 

Jason didn’t like to put his trust in that. If he wanted stuff done, he might as well do it himself.

 

The trio stared at him and his comforter bag. He ignored them.

 

He did the same with all the cooling packs in the medbay freezer as he had upstairs.

 

He also pilfered half the emergency liquid Batfunds from their hiding place.

 

Third was the Batgarage.

 

He almost expected to be stopped, to have to fight his way through, but instead he was met with watchful silence when he stalked to one of the Batmobiles, opened the trunk, collapsed the back seats and spread his catch on the floor.

 

Then Jason methodically moved on the hangar for the fliers and plastic-ed up every single landing gear. Barbara put a hand on Damian’s shoulder and asked him to push her to the elevator because she wanted a snack.

 

Damian must have been pretty out of it not to see through the transparent excuse. Or maybe he was experiencing disconnect. He blinked at the systematic destruction Jason was wreaking upon their vehicles, then at Barbie, and obeyed without a word.

 

The Bat-tires were all a lot sturdier than the civilian ones, so slashing wouldn’t work that well.

 

Instead, with a lingering look at Alfred to see if he’d try to stop that much, Jason took out the Bat-impact-wrench and went to work removing every single wheel and kicking them over the edge of the precipice into the man-made lake Batman kept his marine float in.

 

Once only his chosen Batmobile was standing on all its wheels, he went for part four.

 

Fourth was Tim.

 

He strolled up to Tim’s body, opened the refrigerating dome, and lifted the sheet covered lifeless body up in his arms. He noticed Alfred bustling around. Still, he didn’t move to stop him when he went back to the trunk and deposited Tim in it.

 

Considering how the body had been kept very cool since his death (probably to make it easier to disguise his civilian death to a later date) rigor mortis had barely set in and it was fairly easy to maneuver him into lying on his side so he would fit inside the limited space.

 

Jason folded the blanket back up over Tim and closed the trunk. This was when he noticed Alfred in much more practical clothes than he ever thought he’d see the old man in, holding a backpack and opening the passenger door.

 

He stared at the old man, but when he was only met with a very flat stare, he shrugged, climbed into the driver seat and drove off. It was nice to see someone else understood about respecting final wishes and all that.

 

Fifth was distraction.

 

In the morning, once he estimated himself far enough from Gotham, Jason bought a replacement minivan with tinted windows at a shady second hand shop. Alfred helped him transfer the contents of the Batmobile, and then they left with their new vehicle.

 

Jason left the Batmobile in a well frequented parking lot with the keys taped to a side mirror for any daring youth to take it on a joyride whenever they found it. Alfred didn’t look thrilled by his choice, but didn’t protest either.

 

When Alfred asked him what he planned on doing, Jason started considering his options besides ‘steal the body and run’. Speaking the possibilities out loud helped him think them through too.

 

Breaking into a funeral house and commandeering the crematorium, although easier, would leave an obvious trail. If not on the security surveillance, at least in the fuel gauge. There was no way it wouldn’t be reported and investigated, and even if nothing came up from it, it would make Tim’s civilian death with a missing body much more suspicious than it needed to be.

 

Tim was so loyal to the Bats and their secret, that even the fleeting possibility that Jason might be too careless and accidentally harm his successor's cover made him sick to his stomach.

 

Alfred nodded at Jason’s exposed doubts. “Well,” he mused. “I guess humans have been building funeral pyres since the Roman empire, and they didn’t have gasoline then. I suspect young master Tim would have appreciated such a send-off.”

 

Jason swallowed. “Would he?” he asked, suddenly desperate to learn more about the person he’d just gone against Batman to cremate.

 

Alfred smiled sadly. “Yes, I believe so. He forced Master Bruce to watch the original Star Wars trilogy once.” Jason smiled, wondering how he’d even managed that feat, but didn’t ask, not wanting to interrupt the tale. “Master Tim was so emotional at the funeral for Anakin Skywalker. I could see the awkwardness radiating out of Master Bruce. It was clear he didn’t quite know what to do.”

 

* * *

 

 

In the following day of driving, they had to make a few pit stops to buy more ice-cubes and dump the old ones so the body they were transporting didn’t start to warm up and putrefy.

 

Jason guessed the result would be the same either way, but he really prefered to be able to give Tim as much dignity in his funeral as he could. And as far as he was concerned, it included not letting him start to smell like a pile of garbage.

 

* * *

 

 

They picked a deserted beach at the foot of a ragged cliff, hoping the relief would hide their fire from the watchful eyes of fire departments, and waited for the evening to start moving their newly bought supplies and Tim.

 

There was quite a bit of wood, charcoal, and acetone bottles to move over a pretty long way, but Jason was strong and had quite a bit of endurance, so he took care of it while Alfred built the pyre.

 

When all the supplies were moved, and once the night was well fallen, Jason finally brought Tim. He was still fairly cold, and didn’t actually smell.

 

Feeling like this had all gotten much more real, Jason carefully wrapped Tim in the comforter, letting a tuft of hair poke out to make the human shape look more like a voluntary blanket burrito than a carpet wrapped corpse.

 

He reviewed his excuse: Yes, my brother fell asleep during the car ride. He never sleeps so I didn’t feel like waking him. I couldn’t let him in the car though. It’s okay, he barely weighs anything.

 

Jason didn’t see anyone, but the cover story had already started to make him shift his way of seeing things. Brothers…He shook himself off and hurried over to Alfred.

 

Now that Tim was out, they had to make haste. Getting caught with a corpse was absolutely not desirable.

 

“I know it’s stupidly romantic, but I can’t help thinking we should burn him with his weapon,” Jason said, sighing while dousing the comforter in acetone. (They should probably douse Tim too, but that was something neither of them could bring themselves to do, pouring acetone on a family member.)

 

Alfred smiled faintly and opened his backpack to pull a small cylinder out. Jason reached for it and unfolded it.

 

They quickly put Tim in position on top of the fire accelerant doused pyre. (Jason spared a moment to be thankful Tim had already been cut out of his fire retardant nomex uniform and dressed in cotton civilian clothes. He didn’t voice it, though, because he was fairly sure Alfred had been the one to do it and it must have been incredibly harrowing for him.)

 

Alfred took out a camcorder and a tripod and started recording the funeral pyre. It wasn’t meant as an archive, too risky, but as an inclusion, so the rest of the family would be able to see it at least once if they chose to.

 

Jason stared at Tim’s too pale dead face.

 

He had been suppressing his knowledge that Tim’s ‘body’ was actually Tim’s corpse. He’d been compartmentalising, and he knew it, thinking like Tim was in some sort of coma instead of dead. Even when he’d been browsing the barbecue section of the mall for the pyre’s material, he’d still been treating it like he was doing Tim a simple favor, rather than organizing a funeral.

 

Because he needed to be functional, because he couldn’t break down.

 

At last, Alfred and Jason folded the acetone doused comforter over Tim’s body and threw ropes over the pyre to anchor it down. (Apparently, Roman pyres sometimes ejected the person placed on top of it because of the abrupt heat, and they prefered to avoid this risk.)

 

Finally, they lit a couple of torches and touched them to the pile, lighting it up.

 

The pyre went up in flame with a _wroof_.

 

Jason retreated out of the camera’s recording field and huddled down.

 

That was it.

 

No more Tim.

 

Alfred, bless him, noticed his somber mood and gently rubbed his back as they watched the initial acetone fuelled fury recede down to a more reasonable wood and coal fueled one.

 

“You should cry,” Jason rumbled.

 

“So should you, young man,” Alfred hummed back.

 

“Somehow I can’t,” he admitted, staring at the brazier. “But the kid deserves to have someone cry at his funeral. You knew him, you should do it.”

 

Jason felt numb. The heat of the fire was drying his lips and stinging his cheeks and forehead, but he couldn’t bring himself to care, let alone move away. Not with the burnt flesh smell and occasional explosion as the heat started to pulverise bones.

 

Even as tears started sliding down Alfred’s weathered old cheeks, the disconnect wouldn’t go.

 

He was still thinking about what if someone came. What if the fire department came by and noticed they were illegally getting rid of a body.

 

Thankfully, no one came by for the four hours it took for the fire to burn itself down to embers.

 

Somehow, Alfred had fallen asleep in the sand, dried tear tracks marring his face. It had been a very long 36 hours, after all, and Jason had no idea how long the man had been awake before he came in the cave to hear Tim’s will.

 

Jason didn’t wake him and raked the coals closer together with a long branch, looking out for any long bone or unburnt flesh that would need to be pushed closer to the embers.

 

There were some bone fragments, but thankfully no flesh, and once Jason had managed to push everything closer together, he took the last bottle of fire accelerant, poured it in a long handled steel pan and carefully dumped it on, then jumped out of the way of the new tongue of fire.

 

One hour later, Alfred still fast asleep, he carefully scooped the top layer of ashes into the big glass jar they had bought for them.

 

Once it got impossible to catch the ashes without taking sand with it, Jason took out the garbage bags and started scooping all the mixed sand and ashes he could into them.

 

Only then did he shake Alfred awake.

 

They silently took everything back to the van, drove a few miles to a wild looking patch of forest and buried the ashy sand.

 

“So. What now?” Alfred asked, looking at the Jar.

 

“Now,” Jason said with a sigh, “I drop you off at a train station so you can go back home to Gotham, and I get to burying these ashes in different locations.”

 

Alfred smiled sadly. “It’s probably for the best. It’ll give you boys the opportunity to spend some time together. Take him somewhere nice, hear me? I always thought the boy needed to go on vacations more.”

 

Jason swallowed around the lump in his throat. “Promise. Only the best places for little Red.”

 

Alfred looked equally choked up.

 

They climbed back in the van.

 

* * *

 

 

“Take care, young Master Jason,” Alfred whispered along with a rare hug in the deserted train station. “No matter the circumstances, it was good seeing you again.” Then he looked down at the Jar. “I’m counting on you to keep that one out of trouble, young man.”

 

And… Here were the tears again, Jason shuffled awkwardly while Alfred dabbed at his eyes.

 

He ran away as soon as the train came in the station, rather than stay for a last tearful goodbye.

 

“Well,” Jason told the Jar when he turned the key in the ignition. “Ready for a last adventure, Timbo?”

 

* * *

 

 

There wasn’t, Jason thought as he sieved the ashes into a mixing bowl to catch the chunky bits of charred bone, anything that could drive the reality of someone’s death in more deeply than having to crush their bones to a dust using seemingly innocent kitchen ustensils...

 

It took him a couple of hours to get the bones into fine enough a powder as to be totally inconspicuous in the granite mortar he’d bought especially for this purpose. He was so glad he’d managed to hide the chunks from Alfred, it wasn’t something he wanted the old butler to even have to think about.

 

* * *

 

 

“So? Do you like it here?” Jason asked Tim’s Jar.

 

He was aware that Tim was dead and talking to his ashes looked an awful lot like madness, but to be fair, next to the Pit madness, any other form of it was an improvement.

 

“I like it. It’s nice. I think you’ll be happy here.” With a small smile, Jason reached for his shovel and started digging.

 

Once the hole was a couple of feet deep, Jason knelt by it and dumped a handful of ashes in.

 

Well, ashes and some sand. Most air travel companies didn’t let funeral urns travel in the passenger cabin. Jason had used colorful sands to make Tim’s Jar look more like a souvenir decorative sand bocal than a jar of human ashes. He was sure Tim didn’t mind going undercover, he’d been trained to it, after all.

 

When he was done shovelling soil back in the hole, Jason sprawled next to it, basking in the beauty of the spot he’d chosen to be yet another of Tim’s graves.

 

“So, where to next?” he asked his deceased brother. When, predictably, no answer came, he smiled. “I think you’d like Tibet. Let’s go to Tibet. Maybe I can find somewhere you like in the Himalayas.”

 

* * *

 

 

Jason stared at the hole. The last one he’d have to dig after what seemed like a hundred of them (it really wasn’t though).

 

The scenery was pretty perfect, blue sky over a lush green mountain, not too high, and still pretty wild. It went well with the rest of his string of small graves.

 

With a grimace, he tipped the small glass bocal (he’d switched the Jar out for smaller containers as he went) over the hole.

 

A part of him was saying to only dump half of the ashes down, to keep going for a bit more.

 

Finally, tears welled up.

 

He knew he hadn’t actually needed to divide the ashes half as much as he had. It had been an excuse, to be able to hold onto his little brother for a bit more time. Not that he’d ever been much of a brother to him, except for this one last time when it mattered most.

 

The same part of him asked again if they did have to bury all the ashes. He could keep an ounce of them after all, keep a bit of it, for memory.

 

Jason shook the bocal to dislodge the last of the dusts in it and scooped a handful of soil over the ashes immediately afterward before he could lose his nerve.

 

It was time he said goodbye.

 

It was time to let Tim go.

 

Jason finally started to sob, crying over the too young hero. Over the little brother he never actually managed to bond with. Over the Robin, dead, just like him, and the fact that it was what it had taken for Jason to finally pay attention to him.

 

He cried, long and hard.

 

Then he took his shovel and filled this last hole back up.

 

“Wherever you are now, I hope you are more happy than you were when you left us,” he murmured. “I can’t remember being dead, so I can only hope.”

 

He looked around. “This has been fun, kinda. I hope you liked our little adventure as much as I did. I just. I. I’m just sad and sorry we couldn’t do that while you were alive.”

 

He sniffed, rubbing at his eyes. “Farewell, Tim.”

 

Breathing deeply, he placed the bocal next to the upturned soil and stepped back, taking his cellphone out. He walked far enough away that he could get the mini-grave in the camera’s frame along with a good chunk of the scenery.

 

He hadn’t documented any other locations, but seeing the quantity of different places he’d scattered Tim’s ashes across, just one picture wouldn’t hurt too much.

 

 _-Coming back to Gotham now-_ He included with the picture to Alfred.

 

It was, after all, time to move on. Jason definitely should try and talk to Damian so he didn’t have to mourn another stranger of a little brother ever again. (The thought hit him suddenly, that it was exactly what Dick had said to explain his much more developed relationship to Tim as it had been to him.)

 

His phone chimed with a reply.

 

_-I am looking forward to your return-_

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

>  **TRIGGER WARNING:** Suicide. Corpse handling.


End file.
